File:Canadian forest industries July-December 1921 (1921) (20537716961).jpg

Title: Canadian forest industries July-December 1921
Identifier: canadianforjuldec1921donm (find matches)
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors:
Subjects: Lumbering; Forests and forestry; Forest products; Wood-pulp industry; Wood-using industries
Publisher: Don Mills, Ont. : Southam Business Publications
Contributing Library: Fisher - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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Keep a Firm Grip on Things The question is being asked, What is wrong with business, not only in the lumber line, but in every other activity, for almost without exception, there prevails in every arena a depression. When will there be a revival? When will the wave of agitation and unemployment cease, confidence reassert itself, and the buyers' strike, as it is commonly called, come to an end? Have quotations reached the bottom? Will purchasing be active this fall? How long before large speculative building and industrial extensions will be undertaken? Has the process of economic readjustment reached a point yet where it pays the man of average means or moderate wage to build a home for himself rather than continue paying rent? What is going to be done this winter with the unemployed? Times are, in all conscience, uncertain enough just now, but what will they be five months hence if the weather is cold, fuel commands its present high prices and rents continue to climb? These and many other queries are being asked and no one seems able to answer them satisfactorily or comprehensively. In spite of predictions to the contrary and the utterances of the most sanguine that the worst is over, it would appear that the situation grows no better and that the bottom has not yet been reached, either in the way of receiving values or industrial inactivity. For a year now there has been a gradual dropping off in trade and a lowering of prices. Each month seems to be a little worse than the preceding one and conditions are far from approaching normal. It was semi-officially announced that there would be a radical improve- ment last spring. This not materializing, other seers came forward and intimated that there would be quite an alteration of affairs in September. Now, as that month comes near, we hear the prophetic oiies suggesting that it may be next spring before a change for the better is ushered in. Whether one has the gift of vatacination or not, it has always been a pleasure to tell what was going to happen. In many cases these ient servants of every community would hit the nail on the head and then, with calm assurance and becoming dignity, could walk about and arrogate to themselves superior talent; in fact, they might look down with disdain upon the poor, beknighted individuals who could not, as they had done, peer over the horizon and foretell what conditions would be on the morrow. Established standards, customary regulations, the law of cause and effect, seasonal demand and every other record of the ebb and bow of former years have gone by the board. While it is not well to give way to despair or, on the other hand, exult in too lured a vision, it is well to pursue the middle course. This is the safest road to fol- low in periods of extreme reaction, no matter whether the pendulum swings heavily in the direction of prosperous times or toward an era of stringency and unemployment. He who does his best to meet the situation from day to day, who endeavors at all times to be master of himself and his business, doing nothing rash on the one hand and committing no economic suicide on the other, is the one who is bound to emerge in ship-shape when times get normal. Then will this old world once more react and respond to conditions as they were before the European cataclysm badly upheaved national credits, shattered regular channels of trade and radically altered the normal producing, consuming and distributing facilities of every industrial community. Has Labrador Rich Resources of Wood? There is a wide difference of opinion regarding the timber possi- bilities of Labrador, between H. C. Bellew of Montreal, who has just returned after a month's absence from the city, and A. Tourangeau, a director of the Quebec Labrador Pulp & Lumber Co. Mr. Bellew de- clares that there is practically no timber there, and that only small spruce will grow—it being too cold for anything else to prosper. Mr. Tourangeau, after declaring that Mr. Bellew could not have made any serious expedition into the country in the time he was absent, having left Louisburg on July 14 and returned to Sydney, N.S., on August 8, declares that there are millions of cords of splendid pulpwood in the country, as well as billions of feet of big saw timber, and he backs up his assertion by photographs taken by the expedition in charge of Major D. Owen in 1919, by airplane and on foot, as well as by his own personal experiences in 1914 and last year, when he spent three months in exploring the limits of his company. "There is no wood for 15 or 20 miles back from the sea coast," declared Mr. Tourangeau, "and any expedition that went to look over the timber possibilities would have to spend two days before getting into the wooded area. Our limit is on the Pinware River, and covers 734 square miles. Our American lumber cruiser declares that he can guarantee 2,800,000 cords of pulpwood on the limits, besides the saw timber. There is a large river and water power capable of developing 8,000 h.p." The expedition superintended by Major D. Owen in 1919 was to the southern portion of Newfoundland Labrador, about Battle Har- bour, which is not quite so far down as Hamilton Inlet, where is located the limit that Mr. Bellew went to explore. The area held by the company which made the expedition is 2,434 square miles, and the report of Major Owen states that the 15,000 photographs taken are conclusive witness to the immensity of the timber upon this tract.

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